Shawn Pegg

Director of Policy and Research at Food Banks Canada

Shawn has been leading research and advocacy at Food Banks Canada, including the HungerCount survey and report, since 2007. He has worked as a social researcher and advocate for more than a decade, partnering with a range of organizations focused on social policy, inclusion, and poverty reduction. He has an abiding interest in what makes social movements successful, and an abiding belief that positive change is possible. He has a Masters in Sociology from McGill University.

Canada's poorest communities are least able to address the effects of poverty with a charitable response. As the rate of poverty in a given community increases, the number of donors available to support charitable efforts - and the ability of charities to address the effects of poverty - decreases.

In the 2016 HungerCount report, Food Banks Canada called on the federal government to implement a poverty reduction strategy no later than the fall of 2017. Canadians who are struggling with food insecurity cannot wait years for the federal government to act. They need help now, today.

How many of us have seen food banks open their doors in our home towns? The reasons may differ by region -- the decline of manufacturing in Ontario and Quebec, fisheries in Atlantic Canada, farming in the prairies, forestry in the northwest -- but the overall reality is similar across the country. The economic landscape is fundamentally changed.

As Canadians have been doing for more than three decades, refugees from Syria and many other countries turn to our nation's food banks, because government supports for the most vulnerable don't even provide enough money to cover the most basic necessities.

In the territories, nearly one in five households has trouble getting enough food to eat. In Nunavut, this figure rises to half of all households -- a truly staggering number. This situation is the result of many factors, including the high cost of food and very high rates of poverty, particularly within indigenous communities. The effects of the residential school trauma, decreasing access to traditional foods, and the high cost of hunting add complexity to the problem.

Food bank use currently hovering at record levels. Food Banks Canada's HungerCount report shows that the food bank network acts as an unofficial Canadian safety net, trying to fill the gaps left by low-wage jobs and radically inadequate provincial social assistance programs.

Food banks have been helping more than 700,000 people each month for the past 15 years. These are children, families, single people and working households who need help just to have enough food to eat -- and each month, 80,000 are asking for help for the very first time.